Monday, December 31, 2012

""Understandably, the rebel version of events is heavily biased towards
their own side and demonises the Syrian government. More surprising is the
willingness of the international media, based often in Beirut but also in London
and New York, to regurgitate with so little scepticism what is essentially
good-quality propaganda. It is as if, prior to the US presidential election in
November, foreign journalists had been unable to obtain visas to enter the US
and had instead decided to rely on Republican Party militants for their
information on the campaign – moreover, Republican activists based in Mexico and
Canada...

...Warlords, small and big, become the real rulers of the country. In
Aleppo, the commercial heart of Syria, the rebels' main preoccupation is looting
the city...."" (thanks Nu`man)

"On Monday, right-wing activists took to the streets to protest the
incident, and called for the deportation of Sudanese and Eritrean
migrants from Israel. "The infiltrators come here without women and
afterward people are surprised that they rape," said MK Michael Ben Ari
(OtzmaLeyisrael) during the protest. "I call to issue a temporary order
to deport all the infiltrators back to Africa. It is much more dangerous
here than it is in Eritrea.""

I saw
Mohamed's response to
my message you
posted on your blog. He challenged me to "document a single case"
of Palestinians dying due to simple illnesses due to the lack of qualified
doctors and adequate medical equipment in the West Bank. Well, check it out
below (these are just a few, italics are mine).

You and
your readers know very well the whole Palestinian Authority is a sham. Mohamed
sounds more like a propagandists rather than a doctor working in the West Bank.
He blames my beef with Ramallah Governor Leila Ghanam due to ‘tribal dispute’.
It’s ironic how the current Ramallah governor relishes any opportunity to
criticize the Israeli occupation when her previous profession was a senior security
official who’s primary job (as we all know) is to protect Israel and its
settlers by quelling any Palestinian resistance.

Here is
“WHO’s classification on the Palestinian Medical Service”:

"At least
57% of deaths in the West Bank were preventable. " (WHO,
May 12, 2012)

"This study
in 2 Palestinian hospitals aimed to assess physicians’ knowledge about the risks
associated with the use of radiological examinations. A questionnaire answered
by 163 physicians revealed many gaps in knowledge. Only one-third of physicians
had received a radiation protection course during their undergraduate study or
in the workplace. Few physicians were able to answer correctly many scientific,
knowledge-based questions. For example, only 6.1% of the respondents were able
to identify the ALARA principle and 98.2% did not know that there is no safe
dose limit according to international recommendations." ( WHOJune 2011, p. 875)

"Preventable injuries from traffic accidents,
burns and poisoning are prominent causes of childhood mortality and account for
more than one fourth of the deaths in children between the ages of one and five.
Preventable accidents and injuries are also responsible for almost one
third of all deaths among the 5–39 year age group." (WHO 2000)

"Experts
from Birzeit University say death rates among children and expectant mothers
have failed to decline in recent years." (BBC 2009)"

"" "They stayed six years and only paid rent for one year," said
Haji Najibullah Khan, who grew up in the Pashengar house that became a US base.
He said the departing US commander warned him off pushing for rent money when
they met a few weeks before the soldiers drove away in the night.""(thanks Amir)

"“They beheaded him, cut him into pieces and fed him to the dogs,” said Agnès-Mariam de la Croix, mother superior of the Monastery of St James the Mutilated between Damascus and Homs.
Forget the familiar Arab spring narrative about down-trodden masses taking on the forces of evil: the Syrian conflict appears to have entered a darker phase in which the rebels are committing atrocities against innocent civilians. It does not bode well for peace.
The people who chopped up Arbashe did not seem to need much of a motive: his brother had apparently been overheard complaining about the rebels behaving like bandits.
Sister Agnès-Mariam, who has been keeping a macabre scorecard of such atrocities, believes that his fault, in the eyes of his killers, was his Christian faith.
“The uprising has been hijacked by Islamist mercenaries who are more interested in fighting a holy war than in changing the government,” she told The Sunday Times on a recent visit to Paris. “It’s turned into a sectarian conflict,” she added. “One in which Christians are paying a high price.”" (thanks Samer)

From Ali, Angry Arab's correspondent in Turkey:
"Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, I wish to discuss this photo with
John Berger... Yesterday Erdogan visited the border town Akcakale where Arabs
are living and to present him as one of them he wears traditional Arab
costumes... As if Arabs are wearing it but not.... It seems to me he needs a
camel too to fulfil the imagination of Arabs in west... I cannot describe it
with all aspects but does not it smell a little bit Orientalism..."

"ISRAELI Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday he aims to repatriate
tens of thousands of illegal African migrants and that the inflow into Israel
from the Sinai peninsula has been brought to a halt.“Our aim is to repatriate
tens of thousands of infiltrators now in Israel to their countries of origin,”
he said, adding Israel had been in contact with several African governments.
Rising tensions over the growing number of illegal immigrants exploded into
violence in May when a protest in south Tel Aviv turned ugly, with demonstrators
smashing African-run shops and property, chanting “Blacks out!”" (thanks Basim)

Austin sent me this: "I thought you might "appreciate" this
dumb article about Syrian casualties which relies exclusively on
unverifiable (and uncaveated) claims made by the Syrian Observatory for Human
Rights. The ENTIRE thing is replete with stupid non sequiturs, starting almost
from the very beginning. For example: "The
civilian toll of 28,113 includes those who have taken up arms against the regime
of President Bashar al-Assad, it said." Huh? So now people who carry arms are
considered civilians? What next? Well, more dumbness:

"Government
troops suffered heavy losses, with 9482 people killed, while 1040 military
defectors also were killed in action. Another 727 people in the 2012 toll were
unidentified.

"The
death toll of the regime forces is actually higher, but the government keeps
these figures under wraps," said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.

On
the other hand, he said, "the rebels are discreet about their total losses of
life in order to keep up morale, while the deaths of foreign fighters are not
announced in their home countries"."

Saudi and Qatari media have been talking about hundreds of beheaded victims:
"It was unclear how many people had been killed in the fighting in the
district. One young witness said he believed a neighbor had been killed.
Two videos purportedly from Deir Ba’alba showed the bodies of about a
dozen men who had apparently been executed with gunshots to the head.
But there was no confirmation of claims made on Saturday by an
antigovernment group, the Local Coordination Committees, that hundreds
had been killed."

When Ahmed, a resident of al-Ghouta al-Sharqiyeh in Damascus province, conveyed his gratitude and admiration for the courage of the Jihadi fighters to me, he said: "Although I myself haven't adopted the ideology of al-Qaeda, and I don't agree with many of their ideas, we have to admit that they are the best equipped to take on the fight against the Assadi regime because they have strict principles. You never see any of them making a song and dance in the media about what they have done – not like the others. Most of the FSA battalions want to show themselves off as being the most effective force on the ground. They're always releasing videos boasting about their power and achievements, however futile these actions may be. It's all done to get more funding, but the truth is that Jubhat al-Nusra are the real heroes".

This isn't just the personal opinion of one individual but an opinion shared by many and is growing by the day, particularly with the revelation of increasing corruption within the ranks of some FSA groups. There is a real fear that many more Syrian Islamists may deviate towards extreme positionsin the coming period. The accumulated successes of Jubhat al-Nusra and their recognition as heroes by ordinary Syrians may lead to the adoption of extreme ideas in the near, not the distant future.

Jubhat al Nusra has recently been placed on the terrorist list by the US State Department, yet at the same time on the ground in Syria a united military command has been established as an umbrella for the many diverse strands of the FSA. This has brought the FSA semi-international acceptance so that it is considered a legitimate actor by a number of states. By separating the combatants against the regime in such a way there is a danger in creating greater fissures between the two groups. The FSA may refuse to co-operate with Jubhat al-Nusra for fear of losing its recently-acquired international standing. This will result in a weakening of its fighting capabilities. Moreover, the two groups will have less co-ordination in their actions leading to the increased possibility of armed confrontations between them. The split may extend to ordinary Syrians who may find themselves splitbetween their loyalties to Jubhat al-Nusra or the FSA. This is an option we can ill afford; such a cleavage would be too much for Syria to bear." (thanks Sultan)

There is nothing in this article that is not borrowed from Raphael Patai's The Arab Mind. Nothing. As if language can't be used for precision and for lack of precision. As if one uses language imprecisely it is the fault of language. I have seen Robert Fisk being dumb but not as bad as in this trashy piece:
"There can be a kind of imprecision in practical life. I recall
arriving with colleagues in southern Lebanon during one of Israel’s five
invasions and asking how many Israeli tanks were on the road in front of us.
“Many,” came the reply of the refugees. How many? “Ktir” – very many. Ten?
“Na’am”. (Yes.) Twenty? “Na’am” (Yes again.) A dangerous lack of clarity there,
surely.
Hasan Karmi, the Palestinian lexicographer who died six years ago, nursed the
theory that having learned colloquial Arabic as children before progression to
the much more precise written form -- and because language is so crucial to the
development of thought – “Arabs were often handicapped by a lack of precision in
their thinking.” Here I am quoting from Karmi’s obituary by my mate Donald
Macintyre. Hence, perhaps, the failure of Arabs to maintain their historical
superiority in science and intellectual thought." (thanks Nir)

This Syrian opposition figure, Hakam Al-Baba, is optimistic that one day there will be signs outside of Damascus declaring that the city is "free of `Alawites". Read the comments in agreements. (thanks Samah)

It just occurred to me: there have been many profiles of individuals and artists in Lebanon and the Middle East region but I am yet to read one thing in the Western press about the cult following of Ziad Rahbani. I don't recall reading anything about him in the Western press although his reputation and standing in Lebanon and Syria and beyond is uniquely phenomenal. No one has that kind of cult following among the younger generations.

Sunday, December 30, 2012

Mohammad sent me this regarding a post sent to me by Sammy the other day:
"I am not in a position to be the mouthpiece of the PA, but Sammy's post is
clearly a twisted Story. for the following reasons:first: He said "many
stories about people who died due to simple illnesses" and as a doctor who work
in Palestine, I challenge him to document one single case. and check out the WHO
classification on the Palestinian Medical service.Second: Ministry of Health
is not a charity which accepts funds according to the donor's desire. the
Ministry shows the needs and the donor observe the project.Third: If there
--as he claimed-- that there are no qualified doctors in Palestine, so why
Palestine is qualified to train post-graduate medical studies --specialities--
(Palestine Medical Board)Fourth: If Sammy has 'tribal' dispute with Laila
Ghannam in their village (Dair Debwan), It is Shameful to show that there is no
qualifications in Palestine with no Statistical nor scientifically documented
DATA.finally: Give me one single reference other that the relative of Mr.
Sammy who tried to make good thing!! "

Since
the outbreak of the uprising 21 months ago, there have been reports of
antiquities being stolen from sites that previously were well guarded. But now,
according to a man involved in the trade, it is becoming more systematic.

“It’s
very similar to Iraq,” he said. In both countries, he explained, the looting
became “more organised” as time went by.

Syria
is unusually rich in archaeological sites; it was at the frontier of the Roman
and Parthian empires, and contains traces of all the important civilisations
that had a presence in the Middle East going back to the earliest settled
cultures. It is also unusual in having churches and mosques which have been in
continuous use since the early days of Christianity and Islam.

Artefacts
are dug up or stolen from the many sites, smuggled across the Lebanese and
Turkish borders, authenticated by experts and then sold on to clients from
around the world, including the US, according to people involved in the
trade.

It
is potentially big business. A small statue is worth $30,000, the trader
said.

Another
man involved in the trafficking interviewed this year said he was offered an
object for $300,000.

A
video posted on the internet purportedly taken in the ancient city of Palmyra
gives an indication of the ravages wrought by the illegal trade. It shows
several stone sculptures apparently stolen from the site being loaded on to a
pickup truck.

Initially,
the looting happened in an ad hoc manner, sometimes with the apparent collusion
of security services.

One
activist interviewed in the ancient city of Apamea said that excavating and
selling antiquities there, mainly mosaics, had become a rare source of income
for ordinary people in an economy ravaged by war." (thanks Joseph)

From Angry Arab's correspondent in Turkey, Ali: "Some Yemenis blame Turkey provoking civil war in the country and have said
that Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan bears the responsibility of the
murders in the country:

It seems to me that they are not unfair:

"The first report of gun
shipments from Turkey to Yemen was in March, when UAE police said it seized
16,000 Turkish-made guns destined for Yemen. Immediately, there was talk that
Turkey was supporting the rebels in Yemen, and our foreign ministry had to ban
weapons exports to Yemen.

But history repeated itself and eight months later, another shipment of
weapons has arrived in Yemen from Turkey. The ship carrying the container with
biscuit crates full of guns made a stopover in the Saudi port of Jeddah. Turkish
officials suggested the guns might have been loaded there. But documents showed
that the container wasn’t opened at Jeddah, which means they were loaded at the
Turkish port of Mersin."

""But despite the praise — and protest — Hollande's comments
generated on both sides of the Mediterranean, he failed to touch on two
terrible, living consequences of France's legacy in Algeria. First among those
is the historical background in which the continuing discrimination and
ghettoization of millions of French Arabs are rooted — much like the
increasingly open expression of Islamophobia within French society. Second is
his failure to acknowledge the deeply corrupt, brutal and military-supported
Algerian power structure that has dominated the country since independence — one
that Paris has preferred to placate and patronize, even as it presses for
democracy elsewhere.""

From a reader who does not want to be identified: "Hi As'ad, I thought you might find this amusing. Don't use my name if you post.

You may recall the reports from 2003 of Morocco providing monkeys to clear
mines in Iraq ( ).
We all know how crucial this was of course to ensuring US occupiers were met
with flowers, candy, and bananas.

Anyhow, it turns out the Moroccan publication who reported the story may
have been right when they said it "is not a scientific illusion but a well-known
military tactic". I learned this reading Julia Lovell's "The Opium War" about
the war of the same name. In 1841 Yijing (the Qing Emperor's nephew and inept
commander of forces trying to repel the British in the south) "made room in the
budget to buy nineteen monkeys: the idea was to tie firecrackers to their backs
then fling them onto English ships moored nearby. 'But the fact was,' a
truth-telling observer pointed out, 'no one dared go near enough to the foreign
ships to fling them on board.' After the final rout at Ciqi, their keeper fled,
leaving the attack-monkeys of Ningbo to starve slowly to death in his front
lodge." (p. 208)

We never heard how Morocco's monkeys performed in Iraq. I am sure they
learned from the problems of the Qing emperor's apes, and thus we see how
monkeys too stand on the shoulders of giants."

""In 2007, J. Peter Pham, a State Department advisor who has been a
permanent member of the advisory board of AFRICOM since its creation, testified
as to the core mission of the new Pentagon command, which he spelled out in
fairly blunt terms. It involved, he said, "protecting access to hydrocarbons and
other strategic resources which Africa has in abundance, a task which includes
ensuring against the vulnerability of those natural riches and ensuring that no
other interested third parties, such as China, India, Japan, or Russia, obtain
monopolies or preferential treatment." ""(thanks Amir)

"" "(She) said in sum and substance 'I
pushed a Muslim off the train tracks because I hate Hindus and Muslims ever
since 2001 when they put down the twin towers I've been beating them up,'" the
prosecutor said in a statement."" (thanks Ali)

"Egypt has received
a final $500 million instalment of funds promised by Qatar and will get
another $500 million from Turkey at the end of January, its finance minister
said, in the latest aid to help balance its budget and defend its
currency." (thanks Basim)

The biggest scandal of the last year in Western media is this: how Western media followed faithfully in the footsteps of the media of the Qatari and Saudi royal families on the Syria story. Quite a shameful record.

Saturday, December 29, 2012

"Saudi Arabia will shut down satellite television channels that threaten national unity or instigate sedition in society, al-Watan daily reported
Friday. The Minister of Culture and Information Abdulaziz Khoja told
the newspaper that the ministry is working on a new set of regulations
to stop such channels.
“National unity is a red line that must not be crossed,” he said,
adding that his ministry cannot accept any calls for hatred and division
in society.
Koja decided in September 2010 to shut down al-Osra channel,
owned by Saudi preacher Mohammed al-Habdan, for airing fatwas after the
government decided to limit the issuing of fatwas to a number of
licensed bodies."

From Khelil: "So Marzouki got the humiliation he earned for his partnership with al Nahda. The
Tunisian constituent assembly yesterday voted on the 2013 budget, but instead of
an omnibus budget it was divided into 29 parts specifying resources and
purposes. The sole one to be voted down was an increase of less than 10% for the
president's office. Marzouki's MP ally protested that it was politicized and due
to Marzouki's recent criticism of al Nahda (that the party is trying to
monopolize the state apparatus). al Nahda argued (correctly) that since
Marzouki's duties are limited and even likely to decrease next year prior to
elections, there is no need for an increase. Even al Nahda is dispensing with
the silly idea that Marzouki, who could not keep the Libyan minister in Tunis,
has any real power. "

"The recent election of former soccer player Ahmed Eid Alharbi as the first
freely chosen head of the Saudi Football Federation (SFF) in a country that
views polling as an alien Western concept masks regional fears of the impact of
popular revolts that have swept the Middle East and North Africa. It also
constitutes the first time that autocratic rulers have sought to reduce their
identification with soccer in a break with a tradition that employs the
beautiful game in a bid to polish their tarnished images. Mr. Alharbi, a former goalkeeper of Al Ahli SC, the soccer team of the Red
Sea port of Jeddah, who is widely seen as a reformer and proponent of women's
soccer in a country where women are fighting to gain the right to play football,
narrowly won the election widely covered by Saudi media to become the Saudi
federation's first-ever elected leader. "Saudis were witnessing for the very first time in their lives a government
official being elected through what they used to consider as a Western ballot
system. People eagerly followed a televised presidential debate between the two
candidates the previous day," Mr. Alsaif wrote." (thanks Basim)

""The Oct. 24 exodus was part of a wave of violence that has
shaken western Myanmar twice in the last six months. But what began with a
series of skirmishes that pitted ethnic Rakhine Buddhists against Rohingya, a
Muslim minority, appears to have evolved into something far more disturbing: a
region-wide effort by Buddhists to drive Muslims out with such ferocious shows
of hatred that they could never return.""

""But this was a time of slavery and war too. Slavery was
illegal in the Netherlands, but Dutch ships carried and sold slaves in Africa
and Surinam, and Dutch fortunes waxed rich from the profits of the trade. The
Dutch were renowned in China for their violence, and their arms industry – still
the sixth-largest in the world today – was formidable. By modern standards,
Dutch justice was anything but enlightened. Two ghoulish Rembrandt drawings of
the public strangulation of a female murderer depict one of the many dark sides
of the golden age.""

From Amir: ""The Defence Department has quietly removed from the Internet a
report into the killing of a Canadian military officer by Israeli forces, a move
the soldier's widow says is linked to the Conservative government's reluctance
to criticize Israel for any wrongdoing." [Compare this behavior of Canada to its
reaction to Zahra Kazemi's death in Iran]"

""The ruined corner of downtown Aleppo does not, of course,
constitute a state and nor does it belong to the man claiming it in his name.
But as the Syrian civil war has stagnated and Aleppo has fractured into
"liberated" neighbourhoods run by different militias, Abu Ali and commanders
like him have become the rulers of a series of mini-fiefdoms. These two blocks
of the rebel frontline in Saif al-Dawla are his.""

There is no one more shallow, more vapid, more silly, more sensational, more attention seeking, more uninsightful, more ill-informed, more unoriginal than this woman writing in Now Hariri. Arab feminists mock her or mostly disregard her--to be fair--and yet she is considered by ignorant Western journalists as an "Arab feminist". Here, she tells Muslim women how to be feminist. What is hilarious is that this woman never ever talked about herself as a feminist and expressed hostility to feminists (read my article about her from four years ago here), until some roving Western journalist decided to refer to her as a feminist and she took that label with relish.

From Ali, Angry Arab's chief correspondent in Turkey: "Another lie of Al Arabia is exposed
According to Hurriyet
Daily, Turkish Foreign Ministry sources deny the defected Syrian officer
is "the head of military police and Major General." They emphasize
that Abdul-Aziz Jassem al-Shallal is not the head of the military police
and even not a major general but a colonel. An opposition source has said that "He wants to present himself as a hero but only a swindler".

Friday, December 28, 2012

From Sammy: "This past weekend I met a family friend (and businessman) who recently
returned from Palestine. He informed me he had set up a meeting with
Ramallah governor Leila Ghanam. He proposed to donate hundreds of thousands of
dollars for a modern emergency room in Ramallah with all the latest medical
equipment in the memory of a family member who had recently passed away. They
got turned down saying the PA doesn't have the doctors to support such a plan
and training for use in the equipment .. Makes you think that the fuck have they
been doing with all that foreign aid over the years for them not being able to
provide adequate medical care/equipment for the Palestinian people. There are
stories of Palestinians dying due to simple causes due to lack of medical
treatment. Anyways, further meetings with other officials such as the Ministry
of Health and others came up with a better idea..have the family donate the
money to them and they'll take care of the project...yeah right!

Feel free to pose anything written here.

Sammy

P.S. Leila Ghanam, who is often paraded on television as being the first
female Palestinian governor, is from a local Ramallah village named Deir Debwan.
There, her father (Dawoud) and brother (Mohamed) do as they like with impunity.
They come from a family of Palestinian intelligence officials. The local
villagers are sick of them. For example, Mohamed, a mukabarat official, had his
car burned earlier this year. It was reportedly blamed on settlers (link below).
But my family is from Deir Debwan and settlers have never stepped foot there. It
was most likely done to settle scores by other Palestinians."

"Halfway through the episode, the Femen spokeswoman began to question the feminist credentials of some of the other guests, who were questioning Femen’s tactics. For Femen, it appears that their kind of feminism is the only kind of feminism. Women who choose to wear the veil cannot and will not be called feminists, since they do not adhere to the same logic that Femen adheres to." (thanks Khaled)

""Notably, the number of American airstrikes in Yemen, largely
carried out by unmanned drones, has surged over the past year, as much as
tripling in frequency in comparison with 2011. The airstrikes are just one
element of a multifaceted engagement in Yemen. A small number of U.S. forces are
stationed there to provide strategic assistance to the Yemeni military, while
Washington has provided more than $300 million, split among military,
humanitarian and development aid.""

""Salman acknowledges that younger protestors also strongly
oppose Western policy towards Bahrain. The EU and Britain have historically had
close ties to Bahrain because of its oil supplies and strategic location in the
Gulf. The US Navy's Fifth Fleet is stationed here to protect oil shipping lanes
and assert US presence."" (thanks Amir)

""Italian media reported that parish priest Piero Corsi fixed a
text to the bulletin board of his church in the northern village of San Terenzo
di Lerici, which said women should engage in "healthy self criticism" over the
issue of femicide, or men murdering women. Domestic violence against women is a
serious problem in Italy although a report by a United Nations mission in June
said it was "largely invisible and underreported". "A third of women in Italy
had reported being victim of serious domestic violence, a UN report citing data
from Italian statistics agency ISTAT said.""

"Top Syrian military figure defects to opposition". I mean, is there even a hint of a slight exaggeration in this sensational headline in the Washington Post? Top Syrian military figure? I mean, is there no foreign editor to reign in the enthusiasm of those writers and journalists in the Western media? I mean, is there anyone who knows anything about Syria who thinks that the commander of Military Police is one of the members of the military elite in Syria? I know that Western media and Syrian revolution groupies are desperate for big gun defections, but some measured writing please.

"It wasn't the government that killed the Syrian rebel commander Abu
Jameel. It was the fight for his loot. The motive for his murder lay in a
great warehouse in Aleppo which his unit had captured a week before.
The building had been full of rolled steel, which was seized by the
fighters as spoils of war.
But squabbling developed over who would
take the greater share of the loot and a feud developed between
commanders. Threats and counter-threats ensued over the following days.
Abu
Jameel survived one assassination attempt when his car was fired on. A
few days later his enemies attacked again, and this time they were
successful. His bullet-riddled body was found, handcuffed, in an alley
in the town of al-Bab.
Captain Hussam, of the Aleppo military
council, said: "If he had died fighting I would say it was fine, he was a
rebel and a mujahid and this is what he had set out to do. But to be
killed because of a feud over loot is a disaster for the revolution.
"It
is extremely sad. There is not one government institution or warehouse
left standing in Aleppo. Everything has been looted. Everything is
gone."
Captured government vehicles and weapons have been crucial
to the rebels since the start of the conflict, but according to Hussam
and other commanders, and fighters interviewed by the Guardian over a
fortnight in northern Syria, a new phase has been reached in the war. Looting has become a way of life.
"Spoils" have now become the main drive for many units as battalion commanders seek to increase their power.
The
problem is particularly pronounced in Aleppo, according to Abu Ismael, a
young lieutenant from a wealthy family, who ran a successful business
before joining the fight against Bashar al-Assad." (thanks Ali)

"Dozens of academics from Israel and abroad, worried about the threat of academic boycott, have sent a petition to Tel Aviv University (TAU) requesting the cancelation of the university’s participation in the settler-run archaeological dig in the Silwan neighbourhood of occupied East Jerusalem.
The partnership between TAU and Elad’s project was revealed in October, and TAU’s Institute of Archaeology began digging in the “City of David” national park last week. Elad “is responsible for settling over 500 Israeli Jews throughout Silwan,” and the organization’s director “has himself been caught on tape admitting the digs he oversees endanger Palestinian homes situated above.”
The university’s response to what TAU archaeologist Prof. Rafael Greenberg has called “a clear politicization of research” has been to defend the dig on the grounds that it “will be carried out using modern scientific methods, at the highest professional standards, with particular attention paid to professional ethics.”
TAU is not alone in its relationship with the settler group’s project in Silwan; Hebrew University now offers an “Archaeological Field Summer School." (thanks Ben)

"I certainly didn’t hear that Kenya’s Foreign Affairs minister had issued a statement saying that Kenyans “will respect the will of the [Americans] when they elect the country’s [forty] fourth president”. So why do we allow foreign envoys to tell us with such smug condescension that they will accept our choices? Why do we care whether or not they will do so? Are we not financing 95 per cent of our annual budget from our own local sources? What is it exactly that we need from these countries that we must stand at attention and be inspected at every turn without us ever mentioning the atrocities of Guantanamo Bay and Iraq? International relations are unfair and unequal, yes, but when will Kenya learn to call the bluff of international bullies in the eloquent way Julius Nyerere and Nelson Mandela used to? Our last election ended in the pain of fratricidal blood. But if we learnt nothing from it, if the spectacle of IDPs and the number left dead has taught us nothing, then a coterie of imported nannies will not succeed in wiping our noses clean." (thanks Buush)

""Prince Bandar, while ambassador to the U.S., was used by the
Saudi government to negotiate a wide range of arms deals around the
world, which included the biggest arms deal in history, a deal called
the al-Yamamah deal between the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia worth
43billion British pounds. Around six billion pounds of bribes were paid
on that deal alone. Over one billion pounds of those bribes flowed
through Prince Bandar's accounts that were held in Riggs Bank in
Washington, D.C., as it then was. Bandar describes a 15-minute conversation
with thenBritish Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, in which he says he told
the prime minister that the Saudis had certain special needs, the
prime minister said she fully understood that, and that was the end of
the negotiation, the easiest negotiation he's ever had for an arms
deal. Prince Bandar has effectively acted as bag man on all sorts
of international arms transactions going back to the Iran-Contra
imbroglio of the Reagan administration, up until fairly recent times."" (thanks Dale)

""In the last 10 years, 237 soldiers killed themselves, according to
official statistics released by the Israel Defense Forces. That works out to an
average of 24 conscripts taking their own lives each year.""

""With rare exceptions, the only people delusional and naive enough
to believe the US is serious about its "commitment-to-human-rights" rhetoric -
as opposed to exploiting human rights concerns as a tool to undermine regimes it
dislikes - are found in the west. In the regions where the US enthusiastically
supports even the most repressive regimes provided those regimes show fealty to
US dictates, the stench of this hypocrisy, of this radical dishonesty, is so
potent that it cannot be evaded.""

""Pharmaceutical factories, which used to produce more than 90%
of the country's drug needs, are down to one-third of their former production,
according to Elizabeth Hoff, the representative of the World Health Organisation
(WHO) in Syria. Many have been destroyed or damaged in the fighting – sometimes
directly targeted by the opposition. The northern city of Aleppo, one of the
worst affected, was home to most of the factories. Other factories are
struggling to import raw materials due to sanctions imposed on Syria by western
countries. Insecure routes have affected supply lines." "The shortage and price
of medicines are just the tip of the iceberg. Fighting has partly or completely
destroyed half the country's 88 public hospitals, with 23 of them not
functioning at all. Of 1,919 health centres, 186 have been damaged, and 106 are
no longer functional." "The UN appeal for humanitarian funding, revised in
September, included more than $53m in health-related projects for 2012 – but
remains less than one-third funded."" (thanks Amir)

"Saudi religious police stormed a house in the Saudi Arabian province of al-Jouf, detaining more than 41 guests for “plotting to celebrate Christmas,” a statement from the police branch released Wednesday night said. The raid is the latest in a string of religious crackdowns against residents perceived to threaten the country's strict religious code." (thanks May)

If you read Notes on a Century by Bernard Lewis you will understand more about him than if you read all his other books. I mean, he makes it clear that he has a long-standing love affair with Middle East dictatorship. This is a man who was so close to Turkish generals and even advised them on by matters of foreign policy. The Turkish dictatorial government even offered to pay his legal fees when he was sued in French court for his claims about the Armenian Genocide (he even does a worse job in this book asserting that the Armenian genocide was not a genocide because the Armenians were mounting an armed opposition to the Ottoman Empire). He was on close terms with the Shah and his government and even interceded with Princeton University to prevent the granddaughters of the Shah from being expelled from the college (he gleefully reports that he was rewarded for his effort with a large tin of caviar by her family). He met with Qadhdhafi as part of a PR effort by his regime (he says that the interpreter--I thought that Mr. Lewis spoke Arabic fluently?--was a graduate of Purdue and I thought that it must have been none other than Mahmud Jibril who did research at Purdue). He was close to the Hashemite dictatorship in Jordan and seemed cozy with Prince Bandar bin Sultan. Of course, his relationship with the Zionist regime is too well-known, as his relationship with the Sadat regime. This is the man who advised George W. Bush and Dick Cheney on matters of spreading democracy in the Middle East. What a joke.

A reliable source who has been reliable all along tells me that Jihad Makdisi is in London while his family is in Beirut and that he has been sending messages to the Syrian government about his return. He was told that he could return but that he won't return to an official position.

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

"And there was a mini-scandal when the girlfriend of Yair Netanyahu, the son of the Israeli prime minister, posted a photo of the youth wearing a Santa hat and posing next to a Christmas tree, on Facebook. Under the photo was the caption “My Christian boy.”
The prime minister’s office was forced to issue a statement that the image was a joke and that Yair had been attending a party hosted by “Christian Zionists who love Israel, and whose children served in the IDF,” Israel’s Channel 2 reported. Nevertheless the photo was removed from Facebook."

"Israel voiced doubt on Tuesday about claims that chemical weapons had been used against rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Assad.
Activists on Monday claimed civilians had suffered injuries consistent with exposure to some kind of poisonous gas.
"We have seen reports from the opposition. It is not the first time. The opposition has an interest in drawing in international military intervention," Vice Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon said on Army Radio.
"As things stand now, we do not have any confirmation or proof that (chemical weapons) have already been used, but we are definitely following events with concern," he said."

Are you aware that Human Rights Watch's office in Beirut has hitherto refrained from issuing one word of protest or complaint against the Hariri-Salafite-led pogroms against `Alawites in Tripoli? Not one word. Shops of `Alawites in Tripoli were set on fire, and `Alawites in the city were driven out of their homes and their property stolen and many were shot.

"The Palestinian Ministry Of Detainees reported that this year witnessed a sharp increase in Israeli violations against Palestinian children, and said that Israeli soldiers kidnapped this year 900 Palestinian children comparing to 700 kidnapped last year."

"Netanyahu’s professions of tolerance would have come as news to Palestinian Christian students at Safad Academic College in the Galilee. There, students who could not get home for the holidays bought a Christmas tree and set it up outside their dorm.
But in the evening when they got back from class, they found the tree was gone, Israel’s Walla! News reported.
“This is the saddest Christmas,” said Gabriel Mansour, 24, a third-year political science student, identified by Walla! as a representative of Arab students. “All we wanted to do was provide some good cheer for all the students who remained alone in the dorms, and who were unable to go home to their families.”
When Mansour investigated, he was told by college officials that the tree had been hidden lest it spark riots among the Jewish students.
“I was angry to hear this,” said Mansour of the claim that the tree might spark riots among Jewish students and residents of Safad. “Unfortunately they don’t respect our holidays. We fully respect all Israeli holidays. Why can no one respect our traditions? Why can’t we put up a Christmas tree?”
“I do not think Christmas should be marked with such ostentation,” Walla! quoted an unnamed Jewish student saying. “The college has a distinctly Jewish character. It’s not healthy for anyone to be able to do whatever he wants.”"

"According to Ahrar Center Prisoners studies and human rights that the occupation violates specificities of the Palestinians and does not respect them during the arrest operations, especially in recent times that there was a high number of citizens who were arrested from their bedrooms although they are without clothes." (thanks Khaled)

As-Safir's newspaper has an excellent record on service to the Palestine question. It has been publishing a weekly supplement on Palestine. They now have been collected in a large volume (and sister Mirvat sent me a copy). They are edited by Palestinian journalist/historian, Saqr Abu Fakhr. They are an excellent record on Palestine history and politics. Ghassan Kanafani had published a Palestine supplement for the Al-Muharrir newspaper back in the 1960s (Al-Muharrir stopped publication after armed thugs of Syrian regime bombed its offices). There are things I disagree with in the supplement (like the inclusion of certain writers here adn there) but this is a rich resource that I recommend to all.

From comrade Talal: "Istanbul has had in its history a large number of fires, some resulting in a
full burn down of the city. This relates to the prevalence of wooden houses
characteristic of the city. Many burnt houses can still be found to this day in
the old city, a reminder of which is the Bayazid Fire Tower which bisects its
skyline. The fires of old Istanbul are mentioned in Pamuk's books (My Name is
Red and Istanbul)."

""The United Arab Emirates supports a non-sectarian future change of
government in Syria," Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahayan said late on Tuesday
after he met with the opposition National Coalition's chief, Ahmed Moaz
al-Khatib, in Abu Dhabi." (thanks Basim)

""Yet when Americans visit Aamal's base, they are not searched.
They are offered chai tea. And they bring half a dozen soldiers armed with
M-16s, so-called Guardian Angels on the lookout for "insider attacks" by Afghan
soldiers. "Afghan generals get searched by low-ranking foreign soldiers," Aamal
said. "Our soldiers see this, and they feel insulted." "The Americans have the
weapons, so they go wherever they want. It's like this is their country," the
brigade's public affairs officer, Maj. Ghulam Ali, said with a weary
shrug."" (thanks Amir)

""Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal
Palmor spelled it out. "We're fighting terrorism, which comes under very
specific geopolitical and military circumstances. This is not something that
compares with the situation in the US," Palmor said." "The gap between Israeli
gun ownership and US gun ownership is consequently staggering. A total of
170,000 guns are licensed for private use in Israel, or about one gun for every
30 adults." "By contrast, US authorities estimate that at least one-third of all
American households have firearms — and in many cases, not only
one.""

Often times in Islamic history governments use the charge of atheism or insults to religion to arrest or even kill individual writers who offended those governments politically. This may be true about the cases of Ibn Al-Muqaffa` and Bashshar Bin Burd or even Al-Hallaj. This is now true in the recent case of the arrest of Saudi liberal, Turki Al-Hamad. The government is claiming that he was arrested for his tweets that were deemed offensive to religion. That is a lie. Saudi dissidents tell me that he was arrested for tweeting this: (I love House of Saud and I can't imagine the country without them. But they have to respond to our love with love, and our respect with respect. But what is happening does not express love or respect.)

A Turkish journalist sent me this:
"This is just a rumour, I cannot confirmed it: One of the rebel leader
was killed in Aleppo last week. His name is Abu Fourat. He is the
commander of Tawheed Brigades. (Liwa Al Tawheed) He is opposing the
theft and sectarianism. And it is announced that he was killed during
the combat in infantry school in west of Aleppo. But some people do not
believe this story. They say that he was not killed by army but the
leader of Banner of Tawheed Brigades. His name is Abdelqader As Salah
the leader of Banner of Tawheed Brigades. This group has direct
relations with Turkish intelligence and as I told you he is the
organizer of this looting. Banner of Tawheed are also very sectarian
(they raided the villages of Alawites in last summer) They told said
that this assassination is somehow related with this looting, "they
eliminated a big obstacle for them"".

""In the case of Syria, Al Jazeera barely reported about the rebellion in the
first few weeks. Some of my colleagues and I protested, pointing out that
there was stuff happening in Syria and we needed to report on it, regardless
of our personal opinions. Back then, however, the ruler of Qatar was trying
to change the Syrian president's mind and encourage him to take certain
steps toward political reform.

When Assad didn't respond, Al Jazeera then
said: Now get to work on Syria! It's not a good feeling when you have the
impression that you're no longer a journalist, you're basically just a guard
dog responding to your owner's whistle when he tells you to go after this
state or that government. It was really quite extreme: this long silence at
the beginning, then the frantic involvement afterwards - and with the
Qatari ruler always the one calling the tune."" (thanks "Ibn Rushd")

""The resolution adopted on Monday is identical to one approved last
month by the General Assembly's Third Committee, which focuses on human rights.
After that vote, Myanmar's mission to the United Nations said that it accepted
the resolution but objected to the Rohingyas being referred to as a minority.
"There has been no such ethnic group as Rohingya among the ethnic groups of
Myanmar," a representative of Myanmar said at the time. "Despite this fact, the
right to citizenship for any member or community has been and will never be
denied if they are in line with the law of the land." ""

"A U.S. Army brigade will begin sending small teams into as many as 35 African
nations early next year, part of an intensifying Pentagon effort to train
countries to battle extremists and give the United States a ready and trained
force to dispatch to Africa if crises requiring the U.S. military emerge.""

""Suddenly a missile hurtled from the sky and flipped the
vehicle over. Chaos. Flames. Corpses. Then, a second missile struck. Within
seconds, 11 of the passengers were dead, including a woman and her 7-year-old
daughter. A 12-year-old boy also perished that day, and another man later died
from his wounds. The Yemeni government initially said that those killed were
al-Qaeda militants and that its Soviet-era jets had carried out the Sept. 2
attack. But tribal leaders and Yemeni officials would later say that it was an
American assault and that all the victims were civilians who lived in a village
near Radda, in central Yemen. U.S. officials last week acknowledged for the
first time that it was an American strike. "Their bodies were burning," recalled
Sultan Ahmed Mohammed, 27, who was riding on the hood of the truck and flew
headfirst into a sandy expanse. "How could this happen? None of us were
al-Qaeda." "

From Angry Arab's Bahrain correspondent: "This youtube video which has gone viral in Bahrain clearly shows a police
officer slapping a Bahraini citizen: Of course it is by no means an
isolated incident. But now that they have been caught on tape, the ministry of
interior promises an investigation. Of course we all know what that means in
Bahrain.

Al-Arabiyya (the news station of King Fahd's brother-in-law) is one of the most unreliable and laughable media of all members of the Saudi royal family. Yesterday, they "reported" that Jihad Makdisi was kidnapped by Hizbullah. Today, without even referring to their own report from yesterday, they are headlining with the story that Makdisi fled Syria with the assistance of the US government. So let me try to reconcile Al-Arabiyya's accounts from yesterday and today: Mr. Makdisi was whisked out of Syria by the CIA and then kidnapped by Hizbullah on the road to Beirut and then Hizbullah surrendered him to the US government. OK.

I read this articlein the Times and here are my thoughts: 1) it is all based on rumors and innuendos and speculations. 2) the diplomat cited as an authority on Asad is either the US ambassador or the French. 3) I knew that this article is not reliable when it cited a "friend of Bashshar". Bashshar has no friends, to my knowledge, and if he has any they would not be talking to the New York Times. But there is no evidence that he has real friends outside of Sulayman Franjiyyah who would never speak to the Times. 4) The article does not mention that Bashshar's presidential palace was constructed by Rafiq Hariri. 5) Typical of such articles in the Times and Western papers, all the speculation are heard from day one by exile opposition media.

Norman Finkelstein sent me this: "Just read Elliott
Abrams new "memoir," TESTED BY ZION: The Bush administration and the
Israeli-Palstinian Conflict (Cambridge University Press: January 2013).

Here's what he
has to say about the 2006 Lebanon War:

p.
180/ “Given that Hizballah was a Shia group armed by and allied with Iran, it
elicited no sympathy from the Arabs, who looked forward to seeing Israel thrash
it—and told us so.”

p. 181 recalls sacrifices of Abrams et al. during Lebanon
war: “we flew first to Beirut to see Siniora; the war was now in its third
week.It was not safe to use the airport in Beirut, so Rice’s
plane landed in Cyprus and we jumped over to Beirut in a helicopter. The ancient
military craft was deafeningly loud and leaked oil all over us, ruining suits,
dresses, and hairdos as we flew the 125 miles.We rigged up
plastic sheeting over Rice to protect her from the steady dripping.”
(Pity no one lit a match.)

p.
182/ "[Siniora] denounced in propaganda terms that Israel''s actual conduct of
the war belied.The Beirut International Airport was closed, but
Israel was careful not to damage it beyond making a runway temporarily unstable;
it reopened within a week of the passage of Security Council Resolution
1701.Same for the port.Same for downtown
Beirut.Driving near the port, we had seen a lighthouse whose
beaconwas shot out by an Israeli missile.But the
missile had been guided to hit only the beacon, leaving he entire structure
intact and obviously capable of quick restoration.Only the Dahiye
neighborhood of Beirut, a southern suburb that is Hizbollah headquarters, was
badly damaged.”

p.
182/ "[Siniora] himself gave a tearful presentation about how Lebanon was being
completely destroyed, which was false but moving”".

It is getting ridiculous. The folks in the propaganda department of the Free Syrian Army are desperate for Western NATO attacks. So they read the headlines that Obama stated that chemical attacks by the regime in Syria are the "red line" (meaning, that the regime will be excused and forgiven for any other attacks on the people of Syria short of chemical attacks). So once a week, they put a video on youtube that alleges a chemical attack. What is hilarious is that the people there are so deficient in scientific knowledge that they post a video in which a man or a two women are showing "suffering" from a gas attack. They basically imply that gas attacks are like a bullet: they hit only a person or two and don't affect a larger surrounding.

Every few year, the Israeli government engineers a spectacle of distributing gas masks to its citizens to protect them from some impending chemical danger from an Arab or an Iranian attack. Every spectacle of the sorts is known in Israel and outside of Israel as a cheap publicity stunt that is intended to exploit the holocaust for political purposes (which is a sport in Israel). And every time, the Western media dutifully goes along with the propaganda ploy and circulates the images and headlines. I mean, at what point someone in the West will protest and boycott the stunt? But my favorite parts of the stunt is that some Israeli citizens are shown wearing the damn masks as if there was some attack and they are protecting themselves. How dumb is Israeli propaganda? Less dumb than the Western media that goes along with it.

"First, the sources say the gunmen who seized the crew may also have included rogue members of the rebel FSA–something top FSA commanders are keen to obscure. According to one source, “NBC’s security advisers were convinced that there was some FSA involvement in this and contacted wealthy Syrian-American donors of the rebel group, pointing out that Richard had been supportive of the uprising against Assad. They urged them to put pressure on the FSA. They really screwed down on them.” Top FSA commanders were alarmed and promised to help. The disclosure that rogue FSA fighters may been involved in the abduction of the NBC crew will alarm Western correspondents working in Syria, who have to rely on FSA rebels for their safety in a particularly testing war zone of constantly shifting frontlines." (thanks Eric)

So there is a report and headline about Syrian regime shelling that killed civilians. That would not surprise me and it won't be the first time that the Syrian regime killed civilians. But the story of threats against Christians by Syrian armed groups is always buried in stories, as in the NYT: "On Friday, a group of rebel fighters posted a video in which they
threatened to shell Christian villages unless residents forced
government loyalists to leave. Local church leaders have pleaded for
peace and an end to sectarian strife." Here is more on the threats to Christians.

"Human Rights Watch
says Gaza militants
violated laws of war by launching hundreds of rockets at Israeli civilians during last month's
fighting. The Israeli
military says 1,500 rockets were fired at Israel during the eight-day
offensive against Gaza militants, including the first rockets from Gaza to
strike the Tel Aviv and Jerusalem areas. The rocket attacks killed three Israeli
civilians and wounded dozens. HRW's Sarah Leah
Whitson said in the group's report on Monday that "Palestinian armed
groups made clear in their statements that harming civilians was their
aim."" I don't know which statements Sarah is referring to, but is she implying that threats are more deadly than actual harming of civilians, or does she mean that Israel should be forgiven for killing and injuring Arab civilians because it did not make clear statements that harming civilians was their aim? (thanks Basim)

Comrade Joseph writes: "Launching terrorist attacks against the British forces, the Jewish colonists were adamant that Britain had betrayed them. In the period between 1944 and 1948 Jewish terrorism and the British response to it led to the killing of 44 Jewish terrorists and 170 British soldiers and civilians, a ratio of 4 to 1 in favour of the terrorists. Unlike other anti-colonial struggles where the casualty figures would be astronomically in favour of the colonisers, Zionism would begin to call its terrorist war against Britain a "war of independence", casting itself as anti-colonial movement.
Now that Zionists began to recode their colonial project as "anti-colonial" while proceeding with colonisation, they understood that they could capitalise on the recent hostility to anti-Semitism in European public opinion. As the Palestinian people mounted their resistance to Jewish colonisation year after year, and decade after decade, Zionism began to fight them by labelling them anti-Semites.
Indeed, it was then that any call for the end of Zionist colonisation would be confronted with the argument of anti-Semitism. Israel decided then that if state anti-Semitism did not exist, it must be conjured up, if attacks on Jews qua Jews did not exist, they must be engineered, if an anti-Semitic attitude could be discerned, it must be capitalised on, generalised and exaggerated. For the only defence Israel could mount in the new world."

Comic by Terry Furry, reproduced from "Heard the One About the Funny Leftist?" by Cris Thompson, East Bay Express

As'ad's Bio

As'ad AbuKhalil, born March 16, 1960. From Tyre, Lebanon, grew up in Beirut. Received his BA and MA from American University of Beirut in pol sc. Came to US in 1983 and received his PhD in comparative government from Georgetown University. Taught at Tufts University, Georgetown University, George Washington University, Colorado College, and Randolph-Macon Woman's College. Served as a Scholar-in-Residence at Middle East Institute in Washington DC. He served as free-lance Middle East consultant for NBC News and ABC News, an experience that only served to increase his disdain for maintream US media. He is now professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus. His favorite food is fried eggplants.

The comments that appear in the comments' section are unedited and uncensored. The thoughtful and thoughtless, sane and insane, loving and hateful, wise and unwise ideas that they contain do not represent the Angry Arab. They only represent those who write them, whoever they are.